Most pay-equity claimants still waiting for Canada Post reimbursement

Elaine Levesque says enough is enough. She wants the pay-equity money she is owed by Canada Post “before I am too old to spend it.”

Levesque is one of thousands of former and current clerical workers, most of them women, who secured a landmark victory after the Supreme Court of Canada agreed in 2011 that the post office had underpaid them. It was the longest pay-equity dispute in Canadian history. Original estimates placed the number of those eligible at about 6,000, but it now appears at least 8,300 could be receiving a settlement.

Many of the settlements were expected to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. About 2,700 people have received their money, says the Public Service Alliance of Canada, but Levesque and the others are still waiting.

What is frustrating is that they can only rely on information posted on the Canada Post website, which Levesque and PSAC say is rarely updated. Wrote Levesque in a letter to the Citizen last month: “The last communication on (the Canada Post) website, which was issued before Christmas (2013), asked employees to be patient, that this was a big job and they were working on it.”

PSAC says it has been getting many inquiries from former and current union members who have tried phoning Canada Post for information. “When you call, you can’t talk to a human,” says a PSAC spokeswoman.

The wage discrimination period spanned more than 20 years, 1982-2002. PSAC first filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 1983. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of the workers in 2005. But subsequent appeals, won by Canada Post at the Federal Court, followed by a PSAC victory at the Federal Court of Appeal, led to the Supreme Court showdown.

Though the Supreme Court ruling was delivered on Nov. 17, 2011, the Crown corporation did not start mailing cheques until late 2013. The delay was the result of Canada Post’s insistence that interest should only be paid on 80 per cent of back pay, not 100 as PSAC wanted. Canada Post reasoned that interest should only be applied to net pay and not gross earnings. It argued that after taxes and deductions, the workers would have only received “approximately 70 to 75 per cent of their total wages during the period in question.”

PSAC and Canada Post agreed last August to meet halfway. Interest would be paid on 90 per cent of back pay. PSAC says it “knows it will take a little bit of time” for everyone to be get their money as it continues to monitor the payment process.

Canada Post spokeswoman Anick Losier said: “We are continuing with the complex task of confirming many current and former employees’ eligible service and time records, and contact details. To do so, we need to review tens of thousands of individual employee files — both electronic and paper — that span decades.” About 50 people are sifting through records.

Most current eligible employees have already been paid, while former employees started receiving their money in late January, according to PSAC. Any eligible workers whom Canada Post might overlook have five years to make a claim after the last cheque in the current assessment is issued.

Levesque, who worked as a clerk in various areas of Canada Post from 1981 to 1993, says the wait for her back pay has been “ridiculous.” She says she has spoken to former co-workers who are as fed up as she is. “I’m 76. I’m not ready for the glue factory, but I would have liked the money by now.”

SUICIDE VICTIM’S DAUGHTER GETS INSURANCE SETTLEMENT

The daughter of an Arnprior Aerospace employee, who hanged himself in March 2013 after being spurned by a former girlfriend, has received a settlement through her father’s group life insurance policy.

Originally, Dolores Agnel was told the policy was worthless as her son, Randy, who was 47, quit his job a week before his body was found in a shed. There was also a question of whether his suicide would have voided the policy.

Randy’s ex-girlfriend also worked at Arnprior Aerospace and began seeing another employee after leaving him.

Delores Agnel met with company officials after her son’s tragic story was recounted in The Public Citizen last July, but left thinking the policy would not be honoured. But Agnel was notified recently that the money would be paid after all. It has been placed in a trust fund for Randy’s 22-year-old daughter. Arnprior Aerospace did not respond to requests for comment.

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